Thursday, August 14, 2008

Reporters' Notebooks

Tony Barnhart, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The Southeastern Conference and CBS have agreed to a 15-year contract extension to televise the league's football and men's basketball games through 2023. The deal does not eliminate the possibility of an SEC television network. That won’t be determined until the SEC announces the remainder of its television contracts with ESPN and Raycom.

Will Collier, From The Bleachers: CBS and the SEC partner up through 2023? How wonderful. Fifteen years of lousy kickoff times, terrible announcers and a commercial every 10 seconds. Whoo-pee.

Bob Condotta, Seattle Times: The Dawgfather speaks. Washington legend Don James is critical of the Huskies' nonconference schedule, with games against Oklahoma, Brigham Young and Notre Dame. "I don't like it at all. I'd shoot my athletic director if I had that." He added: "Next year is even worse. Who on earth would put LSU in there as an opener? We played LSU (in 1983, a 40-14 Husky loss) but it wasn't like they had just won the national championship."

Bill Koch, Cincinnati Enquirer: Quarterback Ben Mauk has filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, which denied the quarterback a sixth season of eligibility. A hearing for a permanent injunction is scheduled for Aug. 22.

Stewart Mandel, SI.com: A worthwhile cause here. Mandel is holding a "Conference Showdown" in his weekly Mailbag challenging each conference's fans to raise money for DonorsChoose.org. He writes: "It is an extremely innovative charity that allows individuals to not only donate to public schools, but to direct their donations to specific projects in specific teachers' classrooms around the country."